A large number of publications exist regarding human disease etiology and progression, discussing various molecular entities such as proteins, small molecules such as metabolites, nutrients, drugs, transporters, enzymes, pathways, and other information. Additionally, with revolutionary advances occurring in profiling technologies, the amount of new literature is constantly increasing. With such a large mass of data, it may be difficult for researchers to easily and quickly perform analyses and for clinicians to identify personalized patient treatment options. With such a large mass of data, it may also be difficult for researchers and clinicians to select patients for a clinical trial of a given treatment.
There exist attempts to combine knowledge about the mode of action of treatments, specifically the targets of targeted drugs, with the results of molecular profiling of a patient in order to select an appropriate treatment. In “Personalized Medicine in a Phase I Clinical Trials Program: the MD Anderson Cancer Center Initiative” by Tsimberidou, Apostolia-Maria, Nancy G Iskander, David S Hong, Jennifer J Wheler, Gerald S Falchook, Siqing Fu, Sarina Piha-Paul, et al. (Clinical Cancer Research: an Official Journal of the American Association for Cancer Research 18, no. 22 (Nov. 15, 2012): 6373-6383. doi:10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-12-1627), the authors test a small set of drug-target-genes for a pre-defined set of aberrations, specifically mutations. Treatments are selected that target a protein encoded by a gene with an aberration. However, their data shows that more than 7% of the patients had more than one “actionable” aberration. With more extensive profiling this percentage is expected to increase. In such cases, it is not clear, which protein/aberration should best be targeted by the treatment to be selected.